New Players : You must install the Unofficial Skyrim Patches

[Nazenn]

Since the recent sale I have noticed an influx of players who have picked up the game and the DLCs.
Due to the reletively unstable state that is vanilla skyrim, many of the new players are running into various bugs and problems that are well known, but are not aware of the unoffical patches which fix these issues.

If you have recently picked up Skyrim please read the below information (all of it) in regards to the unoffical patches and how to install them.
These patches can also be found on the workshop, but it is recommend you get them from the nexus links below instead as it provides a more in depth control over the patches, ensuring they cannot be accidentally remove from your game via a workshop glitch, and better control over the various updates that these patches regularly get.

Thank you. Please feel free to ask any questions below.

Please Note: Mods do NOT break or disable achievements in Skyrim, so the Unofficial Patches are safe to use in that regard.

If you are having problems with dynamic patchers (Dual Sheath Redux, Wintermyst, ASIS, PerMa etc) after installing the 2.1.2+ versions of the USKP, please consult this post:

SkyProccer problem with the Unofficial Skyrim Patch 2.1.2. series
http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/523890046882075502/

What the Unofficial Patches do:

If you have ALL of the DLCs, you should be using this patch for full game coverage:
- Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch (USLEEP)[www.nexusmods.com]
Please note, you don't have to actually have brought the legendary edition bundle to use the patch, you just need all the DLCs.

If you do NOT have all the DLCs, use these patches below instead. These patches will no longer be updated, but their final form is still completely functional.
The base patch that must be installed:
- Unofficial Skyrim Patch (USKP)[www.nexusmods.com]
And the below patches if you have the relevent DLC pack :
- Unofficial Dawnguard Patch (UDGP)[www.nexusmods.com]
- Unofficial Hearthfires Patch (UHFP) [www.nexusmods.com]
- Unofficial Dragonborn Patch (UDGP)[www.nexusmods.com]
- Unofficial High Resolution Patch (URHP)[www.nexusmods.com]
You need a patch for every DLC that you have for full effectiveness.

Please note : The Nexus is FREE. The initial premium account screen that appears when signing up is optional and can be skipped as it says at the top of that very page.

The unofficial patches are essential for a stable game, especially if modding. At last count, going by the bug tracker tags provided by the Unofficial Patches team, the patch for skyrim alone, without the DLC's fixes upwards of 15 thousand bugs[www.uesp.net] (taking into acount some bug reports will be duplicates).
These are anything from tiny fixes to dialogue, text and spelling fixes, and fixing the placements of floating or clipping objects, all the way to the other end of the scale with fixes for major game breaking bugs that Bethesda never patched. Most reports that we see of bugs from people who don't use USKP are bugs that the patches have already fixed. With Bethesda no longer working, or returning to work on, skyrim, these patches will be the only source of most future bug fixes and are updated regularly.
The patches also fix numerous errors in scripts and scripting stability which helps to make your game run smoother and be more stable in general and can help avoid background problems occuring in your game. More info on that quoted below thanks to Ilja.

The sort of major bug fixes that you can find exclusively included and up to date in the unoffical patches are :
- *Invincible Hawk Fix which causes hawks to be limited in game due to buggy respawning,
- *Dragon Soul Absorbtion bug which risks breaking both the main and dragonborn questline if it appears and also stops dragons from properly going through their death script,
- *The DLC letting you hire the same steward for more than one house, which resulted in both of them breaking permanently.
- *Auriel's Bow contained a possible infinite loop in its script which would cause the weapon to stop functioning properly. If it became stuck, Papyrus would begin to lag,
- Spell absorption so that you can't end up absorbing your own summons making it hard to reliably play as a conjurer and potentially impacting the stability of some quests relying on the shouts,
- Multiple fixes to Breezehome for bugs introduced by Hearthfires and from the vanilla game in general,
- Gourmet Quest fix so that the dark brotherhood questline doesnt break as a vampire.
- *A Daedra's Best Friend was broken by Dawnguard causing the Oblivion Walker achievement to fail to be recognized.
- *Deathbrand breaks if you use the wax key perk to break into Gyldenhul Barrow
- If Dampened Spirits gets started and then Battle of Whiterun completes first, Caius shows up instead of the other guy, which breaks the Thieves Guild questline.
- Adds in shrines to the temple in whiterun which can remove visual effects that might get stuck on your character permanently, like ice wraith trails or spriggan leaves.

Please note, fixes marked with * can only reliably be prevented, not fixed retroactively.
While it is not guaranteed that these bugs will appear in your game without the patch, due to the limitations of the game engine, it is recommended that you have them installed at the start of a new game as by the time some bugs surface their underlying cause has been many hours in the making and cannot always be undone.
These patches also make dozens of other patches mods entirely redundant[afkmods.iguanadons.net] to help you save room in your load order and also stablise your game as many of those old patch mods are now out of date.

Ilja has also contributed this bit of information on how the patches further help stability in the background of your game:

Originally posted by Ilja:

The most important feature of patches is not the amount of broke quests it fixes - despite that the amount is high and several bugs can lead to game breaking events.

The most important feature is that they remove unwanted polling effects and loops from the game, replacing them with better implemented solutions and reducing the stress to Papyrus. This will increase the stability for both otherwise unmodded game and especially heavily modded game.

You don't 100% need Unofficial Patches, but they contribute your character save stability. Ignoring them is equally as silly than playing the game without the SKSE memory fix. It is everyone's own decision, but there really isn't a sensible reason to do so.

To each his/her own, they say. I will personally keep (strongly) recommending those patches, for the sake of practicality.

And some additional information from Arthmoor himself, who is the leader of the USKP project:

Originally posted by Arthmoor:

Folks should also be aware that while Bethesda fixed a range of issues in the vanilla game with 13 official patches, they NEVER did so for the DLCs. They have a history of never patching DLC issues at all, even though many of their DLCs across several games have known quest breaking issues in them.

If people want some solid examples of non-trivial fixes:

Vanilla:

* The numerous ways in which Blood on the Ice will break. Too many to list. Scan our changelog for that quest by name, or as MS11.
* Missing in Action. The player could be accused of trespassing after Fralia invited you to her home, making it impossible to complete this quest if you wait too long to go there.
* Numerous issues with weapon racks that would cause some weapons to silently vanish if the player displayed them.
* Equailly numerous fixes to the mannequin scripting to resolve duplicate inventory as well as vanishing inventory in some conditions.
* Major reduction in save bloating from several causes scattered around the game. Save bloating likely can't be eliminated entirely, but we've done what we can.
* Amulet of the Moon quest can't be blocked and become unsolvable due to the game picking a noreset location for it.
* Revealing the Unseen can't be blocked by Sergius Turrianus being dead, rendering the College quest line unsolvable.
* If Dampened Spirits gets started and then Battle of Whiterun completes first, Caius shows up instead of the other guy, which breaks the Thieves Guild questline.
* Word wall triggers that were incorrectly updating global variables in the script, which resulted in several of them simply not giving words when they should have.
* The infamous Brynjolf "hmm" bug where the second Thieves Guild quest wouldn't start if Drifa had been killed. A problem that's much more likely to happen with Dawnguard installed and the frequency of vampire attacks on cities.

Dawnguard:

* Kindred Judgment can become blocked and will not start (even with the console) if Stalf, Salonia, or either of the hireable Deathhounds are dead long enough for their corpses to get culled from the game.
* Killing Agmaer in Dayspring Canyon before the Dawnguard quest starts will cause the entire questline to break.
* Touching the Sky could break Serana's follower scripts and result in her becoming permanently unavailable as a follower after that, as well as breaking any events she was needed for later.
* Auriel's Bow contained a possible infinite loop in its script which would cause the weapon to stop functioning properly. If it became stuck, Papyrus would begin to lag. This one is an example of one we fixed, but it won't help if the game is already broken because of it.
* Several issues with Dexion slipping out of his restraint area in Prophet, along with the issue of him being permanently in bleedout mode which would then break the remainder of the DLC.
* Lost to the Ages breaks if you visit Mzulft or Deepfolk Crossing prior to reading The Aetherium Wars.
* A Daedra's Best Friend was broken by Dawnguard causing the Oblivion Walker achievement to fail to be recognized.
* A New Order can break if the bear Gunmar wants you to kill is purged by the game's cleanup code. This will then break the DLC questline.
* Dirty edits in the DLC cause purchasing the alchemy lab in Breezehome to break - taking money from the player but doing nothing in return for it.

Hearthfire:

* Hirelings unable to be made stewards despite being intended for the role, along with them losing the steward dialogue if they had become steward somehow despite the first bug.
* Children saying they'll give gifts but no gift is given.
* Children with bloated inventories due to the scripts not properly removing objects their packages were giving them prior to being adopted.
* Stack dumps in the scripting for handling the inventory filtering that governed buying logs for your houses.
* Being unable to move your family to a new home if the scripts governing this didn't run until you entered cells with no assigned location.
* Restraints not being removed from your spouse in one of the dialogue options for Rescue, which would result in them trying to walk backward and becoming stuck.
* Round table and chairs construction taking resources from you but building nothing because it used the wrong keyword assignments.
* Being unable to hire the bard if you had already purchased all of the other house exterior upgrades first.
* The DLC letting you hire the same steward for more than one house, which resulted in both of them breaking permanently.
* Valdimar trying to sandbox in Helgen because his AI packs were pointing him to the wrong house.
* Swapping the enchanting room in Honeyside to a child's bedroom would eat equipment displayed on the mannequins.

Dragonborn:

* The battle with Miraak in Apocrypha could break easily, resulting in him being stuck while ethereal and never resetting. This then breaks the end of the DLC.
* A New Source of Stalhrim breaks if Fanari or Deor are dead prior to when it should begin.
* Deathbrand breaks if you use the wax key perk to break into Gyldenhul Barrow. This one can't be undone if you broke it before installing the patch.
* The DLC makes it impossible to dismiss Onmund if he's your follower.

By no means an exhaustive list. There are gobs more just like this. The point is, the evidence is crystal clear. There are non-trivial breakages in the game and DLCs that people are willfully overlooking by claiming the patches to be useless.

Manual installation of the patches

If for some reason you are incredibly adverse to using the nexus and/or a mod management tool (Nexus is free and safe), then your other option is to manually install these patches.

Go to the patches as linked above and hit "Download Manually," instead of Download with Manager, and you should be given an archive file. Using a program such as WinRAR, unzip the files. By navigating to your skyrim installation directory, go to your Data folder, and simply place the contents from the extracted folder there.
There should be a .bsa, .esp, .bsl and a .ini file that need to be copied. The docs folder is just for your own knowledge, not needed for the patch to run.
CLICK HERE FOR A VISUAL EXAMPLE OF THIS PROCESS [imgur.com]
This same process goes for all manual mod installations, and to get good at troubleshooting mods, and especially troubleshooting the installation of mods, getting familiar with the Data Folder is a good idea.

In the Data Files of your Skyrim Launcher, the list should then read:
Dawnguard.esm
Hearthfires.esm
Dragonborn.esm
Unofficial Legendary Edition Patch.esp

OR

Unofficial Skyrim Patch.esp
Dawnguard.esm
Unofficial Dawnguard Patch.esp
Hearthfires.esm
Unofficial Hearthfires Patch.esp
Dragonborn.esm
Unofficial Dragonborn patch.esp

Depending on which set up you have
This specific order is vitally importaint so please make sure that you follow it, including the order of the DLCs.

(Note: For MO users, you will not have your mods in your Data folder as stated above. You can instead see what your Data Folder looks like to skyrim by clicking on the Data tab on the right pane[i.imgur.com])
(Side note: Arthmoor and the Unofficial Patches team recommends against using another mod on the nexus called SMPC as it overrides a lot of the data from the USKP. You can read why by clicking here[afkmods.iguanadons.net]. This warning will be removed when the update mentioned on their main page is made avalible.)

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More links and resources

Other major patch fix mods that can be used along side the unofficial patches for better consistancy of things in game and improvements on original mechanics :
Small list of little big mods for Skyrim (patch and tweak mods)

If you are a new MOD USER start here with the essential tools you need for a stable modded game :
Guide : Modding Tools, Tips and Resources

If youre having trouble with memory, ini files, or performance then consult this guide as well which can help stablise the game, especially on lower end PCs :
Modding Myths and Advanced Tips

Further links to guides, resources and information can be found here :
C:/ HELP / TIPS / MODDING ISSUES WITH SKYRIM ?

And if all of that fails, feel free to make a thread about any other issues you encounter in the game and we will be happy to help you out.

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Disclaimer: If you chose not to use the patches that is up to you, but read the information first and make an informed decision based off technical evidence, do not make the decision off people who make subjective reports that they aren't needed with no evidence other then opinion. If you do run into issues, the first thing we will ask is if you have the patches because they are invaluable when it comes to a stable game.
If you take that risk yourself, and if you run into bugs, or save bloat, or broken quests after deciding you didn't need the USKP there will be little we can do to help.

Similarly if you have chosen not use the patches do not post "I've never noticed any bugs" and expect that to be taken as proof. Not all the bugs and glitches the patches fix are in your face obvious, and the ones that are may not appear or be as aparent due to playstyle, but when you look into the technical data of the game they are still there and there is no way around it. Further discussion of this point can be found in the comments.
All future posts of this nature will be ignored as I have no desire to be endlessly repeating myself, or to ask other contributors to the thread to do the same.

[Uncle64]

Bumping so this dont get hidden behind the other odd posts that some angry people posts right now.

[Mangles The Cat]

The unoffical skyrim patches help the game from crashing and fixes alot of quest bugs. It is worth getting. Don't go mod heavy though, durning your first playthough. These mods can be put in with minimal effort using the nexus mod manager. Tis a good time to start learning.

Not sure if you must but its a good start.

[SPG]

that should be stickied.

[Nazenn]

Originally posted by Uncle64SwE:

Bumping so this dont get hidden behind the other odd posts that some angry people posts right now.

Thanks for the bump

Originally posted by Mangles:

Not sure if you must but its a good start.

I say must because if I dont say must, people don't use them and then we get 100 bug reports in the first week after a sale of people getting bugs that the patches already fix :)

[Uncle64]

And if you want some mods and you install them using one mod manager as Nazenn suggested.
You need to run LOOT.
You find it here. https://loot.github.io/
Always use the stable version.

[❤︎SinѺn❤]

Sticky please. Even you don't plan to mod, It's always a good idea to get these patches.

[Navarre]

What they said. Get these patches.

[Nazenn]

Originally posted by Clementine will remember that.:

Sticky please. Even you don't plan to mod, It's always a good idea to get these patches.

Originally posted by SPG:

that should be stickied.

We don't have any community moderators so getting things stickied and unstickied is tedious at best as we have to ask the global moderators constantly to update them, and we cant just keep them up to date ourselves.

[The doctor is in]

far easier to get the patches from steam workshop

http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=72850&searchtext=unofficial+patch&childpublishedfileid=0&browsesort=textsearch&section=items

[Nazenn]

Originally posted by The doctor is in:

far easier to get the patches from steam workshop

http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=72850&searchtext=unofficial+patch&childpublishedfileid=0&browsesort=textsearch&section=items

The workshop is unstable and very broken at the moment and the auto update functionality can be disasterous in the middle of a save game hence why I suggest getting them from the more stable nexus instead

[Uncle64]

Originally posted by Clementine will remember that.:

Sticky please. Even you don't plan to mod, It's always a good idea to get these patches.

They are essential even if you don't mod, since they fix so many problems that Bethesda should have fixed. Or at least some of the errors.

I have loaded up my first game since 2011 and only by starting up the game whit the patches installed they did fix several of the bugs and errors I did have in that save and I can play again whit my first save.

[TheCreatorT]

...this was because of me wasnt it XP

[Nazenn]

Originally posted by {T-NH} TheCreatorT:

...this was because of me wasnt it XP

Hahahaha, no, had four people in the space of an hour with bugs patched by the patches, figured it was time for an announcement for everyones sake :)

[AmethystViper]

Wouldn't mind this getting a sticky since it helps newcomers or those importing their saves from the console versions to the PC version and playing Skyrim with less gamebreaking bugs and glitches.

[Nazenn]

Originally posted by AmethystViper:

Would mind this getting a sticky since it helps newcomers or those importing their saves from the console versions to the PC version and playing Skyrim with less gamebreaking bugs and glitches.

Imported saves between platforms are not supported and the unoffical patches team cannot provide any support for them as additional bugs can appear because of the change in platform unrelated to the actual game itself.
However yes, in other cases it does help reduce the amount of bugs massively